People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

--Joseph Campbell

Ruminating lately on why it's so difficult to communicate to others that which is most important to ourselves, I understand that in part it's because one's perception of experience is so idiosyncratic. This is yet another paradox of our existence because we are all quite alike, in spite of our diversity, and we are all connected, in spite of our egocentric arguments to the contrary. But these statements, too, must be experienced before one can accept them as true; otherwise they sound like so much "fluff," or, as someone sarcastically said, like "all blue skies and bunnies hopping." (Sarcasm is my least favorite mode of communication; my experience of it is as a cutting off, a silencing of the other, rather like a slap in the face. Thus, between individuals, it isn't communication at all but its antithesis, though sarcasm can have its place with a broad audience.)

It may seem strange, but my own experience of the best communication that's occurred in my life was one of the most painful times, too. I won't go into too much detail here, but it occurred in a mental hospital, where those who deemed themselves "unfit for society" had retreated (or been put in retreat). Yet the communication there was the most unpretentious, the most open and nonjudgmental of any I'd ever experienced. People spoke of their feelings in spite of their societal conditioning to be hesitant and fearful of doing so. Of course, this openness was expected there (just as it's usually expected that we hide our true feelings) because such openness was touted as being an important part of healing, something we were all eager to do.

And so, my own ideas about what I relish most in the society of others continue to include open communication, acceptance of diversity of experience and ability to relate that experience, and acknowledgement that (and encouragement for) the fact that we all are on experiential healing journeys (as in "becoming whole") of one sort or another.